As it becomes more expensive for electricity providers to increase generation, distribution and transmission capacity, a number of strategies for coping with increasing electrical demand have emerged. One of these is called demand side management in which the users of electricity themselves are adapted to reduce the amount of electricity they use during times of peak power usage as well as in other similar situations. The invention herein provides a way to adapt users of electricity to reduce their demand through an add/shed strategy which can be applied in real time and in cooperation with consumer needs. Thus by communicating the (time-of-use) energy price rate or tier to a control system within the customer's premises, the control system can reduce the energy consumption within the premise during times when the cost of energy is high. The utility in turn can reduce the necessary generating capacity for a given area.
Previous ways to deal with related problems of reducing energy consumption in buildings using add/shed strategies, or in general, are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,510,398; 4,916,328 and 4,909,041. Nevertheless there is no reason why this invention could not be used in non-residential buildings or even in industrial processes that consume electric power, provided that an add/shed load strategy makes sense.